Zoe’s World: We Live In A World Of Oversharing

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Zoe O Connor, who is a finalist in the .eu Web Awards 2016

I’m an over-sharer, an open book. People often know what I’m thinking before a word comes out of my mouth.

I used to think that this was a trait that possibly needed a bit of maintenance, but in today’s world, it’s completely normal.

With social media, it is considered weirder to not post than it is to post a recap of the day’s events along with several pictures documenting your eating habits!

I hardly bat an eye when my feed is flooded with perfectly sculptured salads and pristine poached eggs at 11.30am sharp (insta prime time). I give it an ol’ double tap (or if you are old fashioned, actually hit the little heart) and go on with my day.

Continued below…

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So all of that careful planning and camera positioning is reduced to a careless double tap before someone scrolls down to see what Kim K has been up to lately.

Because as much as you would like to deny it, our oversharing personalities stem from the need to please people, and in today’s day and age the easiest way to be ‘liked’ is through a well filtered insta post.

It’s tedious. It’s tragic. It’s 2017.

So how much is too much? There seems to be a very fine line between love and hate, as we have all learned. If you post a cute shot from your beach adventure, people may feel included and may simply envy your activities.

However, if you find yourself compelled to post 18 pictures of your ‘hot dog legs’ on the beach, you are heading into a whole other territory. A one which garners a little less ‘love’.

It seems that unless we document something on our respective feeds, it’s like it didn’t happen. If you didn’t ‘check in’ on Facebook or add copious hashtags to your post… why did you even leave the house in the first place?

It’s a competition to see who is living the better life and we have all become very good at building up our internet personas so high (like the walls of a fortified castle) that no one actually knows the real story.

You may see people ‘checking in’ to a 5 star hotel, but they may actually be staying in the B&B across the road.

There is nothing wrong with that (I actually have a preference for their breakfasts..) but in this never ending contest, it apparently does. It’s the social media version of caring what the ‘neighbours’ think of you, and eventually those fences will fall down…

How much is too much? What about those people who have chosen to remain completely ‘dark’ on interwebs, without a Facebook account to their names? Should we strive to be more like them or should we continue to create our internet personas?

The internet has done a lot of things for us over the past few years. For me, it has allowed me to make my ‘open book’ personality into a pretty normal looking insta feed… No maintenance needed here I guess…